4 that prescription shall be suspended ‘during the period of disability of the creditor’. According to Nel J, the plaintiff’s claim against the defendant prescribed three years after she reached majority, in terms of s 3(2)(c)(vi) read together with s 9 of the 1943 Act. No order for costs was made, the court a quo holding that both parties had wrongly relied on the Prescription Act 68 of 1969. [5] The learned judge refused the plaintiff leave to appeal. We, however, directed that her application to this court for leave to appeal be argued and that the parties be prepared to deal with the merits of the case. The application was heard on that basis. [6] The principal difficulties in this appeal are the interpretation of the relevant legislative provisions and the determination of whether the evidence of the plaintiff and her expert witness brought her within those provisions. [7] Before considering either aspect certain general observations are necessary. The psychological studies that have been undertaken into the sexual abuse of children have revealed effects on the victims which are very different from those suffered by the usual plaintiff in a delictual action. (I will discuss these effects in greater detail below.) Of course, the prescription statutes in force in this country were drafted in ignorance of and without consideration for the special problems afflicting such survivors. Moreover, society as a whole was, during the period prior to 1980 (and certainly during the minority of the plaintiff) more conservative in matters involving sexual mores than it is now and considerably less willing to confront sexual matters. More people have become attuned in the last fifteen years or so to acknowledging the existence of child sexual abuse and to taking steps to eradicate it. The situation of a